Making plum wine at home involves crushing ripe plums, adding sugar and water to create a “must,” then fermenting it with wine yeast over several weeks. The whole process from fresh fruit to drinkable wine takes roughly two to three months, though longer aging improves the flavor considerably. It’s one of the more forgiving fruit wines to start with, and you don’t need much specialized equipment.
Before diving in, it helps to know there are actually two different drinks called “plum wine.” The Japanese version, umeshu, isn’t fermented at all. It’s made by steeping unripe plums in distilled liquor with sugar, more like a fruit liqueur. This article covers the other kind: true fermented plum wine, where yeast converts the fruit’s sugars into alcohol.
Choosing Your Plums
Almost any plum variety works, but some produce better wine than others. Damson plums are a classic choice for winemaking because of their deep color and tart, complex flavor. Santa Rosa, Italian prune plums, and other European varieties (Prunus domestica) also perform well. Japanese plums (Prunus salicina) tend to be juicier and sweeter, giving a lighter, more delicate wine.
Fresh plums have relatively low sugar compared to grapes, typically around 9.5 to 10 Brix (a measure of sugar concentration). That’s roughly half the sugar content of wine grapes, which is why you’ll need to add a good amount of sugar to reach a proper alcohol level. Plums are also quite acidic, with a pH around 2.5 to 2.7, which actually works in your favor. That natural acidity helps prevent bacterial spoilage and gives the finished wine a bright, tart backbone.
Use fully ripe plums for the best flavor. Overripe fruit is fine as long as it isn’t moldy or broken down. If you spot any plums with visible mold, discard them entirely. Mold-infected fruit introduces spoilage organisms and off-flavors that sulfite additions can’t fully correct.
Equipment and Ingredients
For a one-gallon batch, you’ll need:
- 5 to 6 pounds of plums
- 4 pounds of granulated sugar
- 1 gallon of water
- 1 Campden tablet (potassium metabisulfite, for sanitizing the must)
- Wine yeast (one packet)
- Pectic enzyme (about half a teaspoon per gallon)
- Yeast nutrient (follow package directions)
You’ll also need a primary fermenter (a food-grade bucket with a lid works), a one-gallon glass carboy or jug for secondary fermentation, an airlock, a siphon or racking cane, and a wine hydrometer if you want to track your progress precisely.
Everything that touches your wine needs to be sanitized. A no-rinse sanitizer like Star San is the easiest option. Contamination is the most common reason homemade wine goes wrong, so don’t skip this step.
Preparing the Must
Wash your plums, cut them in half, and remove the pits. You can leave the skins on. They contribute color, tannin, and flavor to the wine. Crush the fruit by hand or with a potato masher in your sanitized primary fermenter.
Dissolve the sugar in warm water, then pour it over the crushed plums. Add one Campden tablet per gallon, crushed into powder. This releases sulfur dioxide, which kills wild yeast and bacteria living on the fruit skins while leaving the must ready for your chosen yeast. Cover the fermenter with a thin cloth or towel, not a sealed lid, because the sulfur dioxide needs to dissipate. Wait exactly 24 hours before adding yeast.
During that 24-hour window, add pectic enzyme. Plums are loaded with pectin, which is what makes jams set. In wine, pectin causes a stubborn haze that won’t clear on its own. Pectic enzyme breaks it down, and it works best before fermentation starts because alcohol reduces its effectiveness.
Primary Fermentation
After the 24-hour sulfite period, sprinkle your wine yeast over the surface of the must along with yeast nutrient. For plum wine, your choice of yeast strain matters less than it does for grape wine or apple wine. Research comparing multiple commercial yeast strains found that plum wines ended up with similar sensory profiles regardless of which strain was used, unlike apple or hawthorn wines where yeast selection made a noticeable difference. A general-purpose wine yeast will do the job well.
Cover the fermenter loosely and keep it at room temperature, ideally around 65 to 75°F. Within a day or two, you should see bubbling and frothing as fermentation kicks off. Stir the must once or twice daily to push the floating fruit pulp (called the “cap”) back down into the liquid. This maximizes flavor extraction and prevents the exposed pulp from developing surface mold.
Primary fermentation on the fruit pulp lasts 5 to 7 days. The vigorous bubbling will slow, and the fruit will start looking pale and spent.
Racking to Secondary
After the initial week, strain out all the fruit pulp. A mesh straining bag makes this easy, but you can also pour through a fine strainer lined with cheesecloth. Squeeze gently to extract as much juice as possible without pressing bitter compounds from the skins.
Transfer the strained liquid into a clean glass carboy using a siphon. Fill it as close to the neck as you can to minimize air contact. Fit an airlock filled halfway with water, which lets carbon dioxide escape while keeping oxygen and contaminants out.
Now you wait. Secondary fermentation takes 4 to 6 weeks. The wine will slowly bubble, then gradually go quiet as the yeast finishes converting sugar to alcohol. Over this period, sediment (called lees) will settle to the bottom and the wine will start to clear. If the wine still looks cloudy after fermentation stops, give it more time. Plum wine can be stubborn about clearing, which is why that early pectic enzyme addition matters so much.
Knowing When Fermentation Is Complete
A wine hydrometer is the most reliable way to confirm fermentation is done. You’re looking for a specific gravity reading between 0.990 and 0.998. A reading in that range means virtually all the fermentable sugar has been converted to alcohol. Take readings a few days apart. If the number stays the same, fermentation is finished.
Without a hydrometer, watch the airlock. When it stops bubbling entirely for several days and the wine has cleared significantly, fermentation has likely finished. The risk of bottling too early is real: residual sugar can referment in sealed bottles and create enough pressure to pop corks or shatter glass.
Stabilizing and Bottling
Once fermentation is confirmed complete, rack the wine off its sediment one more time into a clean carboy. This is a good time to add one Campden tablet per gallon, which protects the wine from oxidation during aging and prevents any lingering organisms from causing spoilage in the bottle.
Taste the wine at this stage. Plum wine can finish quite dry because the yeast consumes nearly all the sugar. If you prefer a sweeter wine, you can back-sweeten by dissolving sugar into the wine a little at a time until it tastes right. If you do this, you’ll also need to add potassium sorbate (follow package directions) to prevent the residual yeast from fermenting that new sugar.
Let the wine sit for another week or two after stabilizing, then siphon it into clean bottles and cork them. The wine is drinkable at this point, but plum wine improves noticeably with age. Three to six months of bottle aging smooths out harsh edges and lets the fruit character develop. A year is even better if you have the patience.
Common Problems and Fixes
Hazy wine that won’t clear is the most frequent issue with plum wine. If you forgot pectic enzyme at the start, you can still add it during secondary, though it’s less effective once alcohol is present. Bentonite clay is another option for stubborn haze. Dissolve it in water and stir it into the wine, then let it settle for a few days before racking.
A vinegar smell means acetobacter bacteria got in, usually from too much air exposure during fermentation. Once the wine smells like vinegar, there’s no fixing it. Prevention comes down to keeping your fermenter covered during primary and using an airlock with no gaps during secondary.
If fermentation stalls partway through and your hydrometer still reads above 1.000, the yeast may have run out of nutrients or the temperature dropped too low. Move the fermenter to a warmer spot and gently swirl it to rouse the yeast back into suspension. Adding a pinch of yeast nutrient can also help restart a stuck fermentation.
Plum wine naturally finishes with a beautiful ruby or amber color depending on the variety you used. Red and purple-skinned plums give deeper color, while yellow or green plums produce a golden wine. Either way, the finished product should be clear, aromatic, and distinctly fruity, something very different from grape wine and worth the couple months of patience it takes to get there.